The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God

I have been busily visiting classes, dropping those classes, and visiting new classes these past few days. Before that, I was busily moving back into the dorms. So I forgive myself for not posting recently. Fortunately, my friend Seth chose this time to publish his first contribution to my blog. Hopefully, it will not be his last. However, I simply couldn't let his post stand as the most recent piece on my own blog--so here I am.

A couple of days ago I finished The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories, by Etgar Keret. Those two or three of ye faithful who actually read every word written here will recognize that name from a previous post, What is Good Writing? I wrote a book review of his collection, The Girl on the Fridge in order to get a post at the Michigan Daily. I did not get the post, for reasons unfathomable (to me), but I did find an excellent author.

Etgar Keret does not disappoint here. The collection is essentially composed of 21 stories and one novella, but only fills 130 pages, (and it's one of those books that wastes pages in order to have pleasantly blank breaks between stories) of which 40 pages are the novella, "Kneller's Happy Campers." Fourteen are amazing, four are most definitely not, and three I am irresolvably ambivalent about. And "Kneller's Happy Campers" serves as an amazing bonus to back up the appeal. In my frank opinion, a 2/3 rate for a short story collection is really quite good, although I don't believe it matches the insane quality of The Girl on the Fridge, which is almost flukish in its ability to satisfy.

I'm having trouble thinking what exactly to say. Read it? Plus, a passage I love: "They used to execute people by electrocution, and when they'd throw the switch, the lights in the whole area would flicker for a few seconds and everyone would stop what they were doing, just like when there's a special news flash. I thought about it, how I'd sit in my hotel room and the lights would go dim, but it didn't happen. Nowadays they use a lethal injection, so nobody can even tell when it's happening" (8). Just read it.